"And Do You Know What My Smile Is Full of?"

Wednesday, August 10, and Thursday, August 11, 2011

Dear Suzy and Jonathan,

            I had the chance to talk to Kathy today, so I can report (in writing) about Wednesday, too, when she and Nan went.  Kathy can add anything she thinks is important.

            When Nan arrived, Mom said she had lost her teeth, so Nan asked an aide to help her find them, and the aide did, but she just handed them back as if they were ready-to-wear.  Nan asked whether they’d been rinsed, and the aide acted as if such a thing had never occurred to her, so Nan asked the aide to put them in some kind of cleaning solution, which the aide did before letting Mom pop them back into her mouth.

            Today when someone commented on Mom’s beautiful smile, Mom said, “And do you know what my smile is full of?”  I hoped she wasn’t going to say “Shit,” and she wasn’t.  Or at least she didn’t.  She said, “It’s full of false teeth.  At first I thought my dentist was charging too much, but now I don’t think so because they look real.”

            Kathy went by around 4:00 yesterday, and Mom said, “I’m glad to see you!” or something like that—warm but with no acknowledgement that Kathy had been away for a while.  Then Mom went right on playing BINGO.  Some people brought Carol back in the area after an appointment, and there was some commotion related to that, and Mom said to the man in charge something to the effect of “Let’s get on with it.  Don’t let those people disrupt our game.”  (Kathy, you can correct my misquotes!)

            When I arrived today at around 11:00, Mom was in the dining room with a lot of other residents, who were seated at the tables doing their coloring.  It was pretty quiet except for the music that was being piped in.  “You Are My Sunshine,” “Down by the Old Mill Stream,” “And the Band played On,” Bye Bye, Blackbird,” Billy Bailey” etc.  Mom said almost nothing but she pushed her sing-along book towards my corner of the table.  She was wearing Kay’s blouse with a lot of circles and flower designs, and she was coloring a picture that had circles and flower designs, and I was amazed at how unsuggestible she was because she wasn’t repeating any of the colors in her blouse.  Instead of dark blue, turquoise, green, and tan, she was coloring her circles pink, black and purple.  (After I commented on how she wasn’t repeating any of the colors in her –Kay’s—blouse, she did add some blue.) 

            Divina came over to our table and told me Mom had played the piano that morning, and Mom looked really annoyed by our chatter.  Mom had told me on Tuesday (sorry, I forgot to mention this) that she wanted some nail polish remover because her nail polish (applied by Sara, the concierge) had chipped.  So I had brought some, and I started to tell Divina that my mom’s nail chipped, so I was wondering where we could sit to take it off with the nail polish remover I’d brought, but before I could get beyond, “My mom’s nail polish is chipped,” Mom said as if really annoyed, “Don’t draw attention to it!”  But after she finished her coloring and she’d gone to the bathroom across from her room, we did go into the sitting room, and she asked Yatra, “Is the smell so offensive from nail polish remover that people would be bothered if we used it in this room?”  I thought that was pretty well articulated by someone who’d said very little until then.  Yatra said that residents weren’t allowed to have nail polish remover, but it wasn’t a problem for us to use it right there.  When I started applying it to Mom’s nails, Yatra said, “Isn’t it great to have wonderful children?” and I said, “It’s great to have a wonderful mother,” and Mom said, “We’re even,” and she smiled.  That’s when Yatra commented on her beautiful smile and Mom told her what it was full of.

            That was pretty much our visit.  I’d brought along an article on dogs and cats—It was actually called “The Battle of Dogs vs. Cats” as if there was a competition going and pet owners were going to trade in what they had if it didn’t measure up.  There were questions like “Which have more stamina?/are more agile?/are better hunters?/are the hardest working?—That would be cats--/live the longest/are the fastest?” etc.  So I was all ready to find out.

             I said, “Would you like to read an article about dogs and cats?” and Mom said, “No.”

             I asked why not, and she said, “Because I’m in a bad mood.” 

            I told her I was sorry and asked why she was in a bad mood, and she said it was because her nails were a mess.

            She had given the nail file I lent her back to me, and then she said, “Would you like to let me keep that, if you have another, as a gift?” 

            And I was overcome with generosity (Aren’t I going to give her five ballpoint pens for her 90^th birthday, after all?), so I let her keep it.

            She said she had to go to the bathroom, so I said goodbye and told her, “I’ll be back on Saturday,” and she said, “Good.” 

            We kissed goodbye, and then as I was punching in 4,3,2,1 #, she turned around in the hall and said “Goodbye” again and blew me a kiss.

            Backtracking—because the scene in the dining room was a nice one. 

            When “You Are My Sunshine” came on the second time, Divina started singing it, and a couple of us joined in.”  I knew only the first verse, but Divina and another person (was it an aide or was it Billie?) knew the second verse, and I only regret that it went like this:

The other night dear, as I lay sleeping
I dreamed I held you in my arms
But when I awoke, dear, I was mistaken
So I hung my head and I cried.

Divina told me that Doris, who was usually so quiet, got agitated today, which is why she wasn’t in the dining room with the others.  Ada wasn’t there, either, but they both came in as Mom and I were leaving the area.  Joy was sitting at the table with Mom and Ella, who were coloring with great concentration, but she wasn’t participating at all—just staring. 

            But when I said, “How are you doing, Joy?” she said, “Fine.” 

            I keep thinking of how relatively alert the sisters are.  When I came in, May said, “Oh, you’re back again!”  Bobbie was at another table, and she’d sing along with some of the songs.  She was, as usual,  with Franz and  also with Jasmine, an aide, who was asking Franz how to say different words in German.  When she came to “I love you” Bobbie wanted to repeat that to Franz (even though, as Kathy points out, she’s about twenty years older than he is), and she thought that liebe sounded like liberty.  She said something I thought sounded like “That’s one of my favorite musicals,” so I wanted to know which it was. When I explained that I was always alert to mention of musicals but that now I realized that wasn’t what she’d said, she replied, “I’m sorry to disappoint you” in a really sweet way.  I told her “I love you” is as  good as “That’s one of my favorite musicals,” so I wasn’t disappointed. 

            I forgot to tell you that on Tuesday, Frank was in the hall, and when he saw me, he asked, “Are you a Dennis girl?  My daughters are coming to see me, and their last name is Dennis.”  I said, “Well, I’m happy to see you, but I’m not a Dennis girl.  I’m a Martin,” and he said, “That’s close enough.”

            Well, it’s nice to have Kathy back, even if she heads down to Pasadena tomorrow for Aunt Mary’s 96^th birthday on Saturday and won’t really be back until Monday.  I hope she has the chance to catch her breath next week!  At least she’s flying back, and maybe the flight attendants won’t spill milk on her this time, and if they do, maybe they’ll say they’re sorry.

I’m going back to campus tomorrow for a meeting and to show a new student (the friend of a friend) around campus. (I’m still trying to figure it out myself.  Jonathan, isn’t there a building on the Berkeley UC campus that people go into and never come out again?  I think we’ve got a couple.)   I go to a retirement workshop on Monday, and classes—15 units—start on Wednesday.  I’ll probably be seeing Mom Tuesdays and Fridays instead of Tuesdays and Thursdays because of my schedule, but I have to say that I feel I have had the chance to catch my breath, and I’m really glad I had this extra time with Mom at a time when I wasn’t working or having to study.  It felt good. 

            Love,

            Tina/Mom